The Temptations of Philanthropy in a Mid-Sized City

A very specific situation gives rise to a larger question

[A slightly different version of this essay appears in Wichita Story]

The news that Chase Koch has been using some of his wealth to buy up properties in downtown Wichita—not for redevelopment (at least not yet), but rather to stand empty while he listens to “hear what the market needs”—is worth reflecting upon.

Koch is an undeniable fan of live music and the arts in general, and the “Elsewhere Fest”—to be rebranded as the “Somewhere Fest” for this coming June—which he indirectly helped put together last year was a small but real success (full disclosure: one of my daughters participated in one of the acts, through the involvement of Harvester Arts). So on the one hand, it might seem fair to wait to see if his ideas for rehearsal spaces and music schools in Wichita might eventually form into something that could really add some catalytic energy to Wichita’s arts and music scenes. As one person commented on social media, development takes time, even for billionaires.

Shirkmere Apartments (Image credit: Apartments.com)

On the other hand, though, it is also undeniable that Wichita is facing a housing shortage, and Koch’s purchase of the Shirkmere Apartments ended whatever renovation plans might (or, to be fair, might not) have allowed the dozens of individuals and families who had to vacant their residence there to return to their former homes, or at least to bring some of those options back on the housing market, whose high rents and low availability is at least partly attributable to owners sitting on potential housing and waiting on the market. And of course, the same could be said of the other properties he’s currently holding on to, preventing them from being similarly developed.

I suppose even talking about Koch’s actions in this critical way might strike some as pointless. Wichita, after all, like all American cities—including New York, San Fransisco, Chicago, and every other blue city that our new president occasionally attacks—is not a radical place; it’s not as though the political will or the legal tools to ensure Wichitans the “right to the city” exist here. On the contrary, Wichita, however much it may be ever-so-slowly becoming more blue, is a city with an economy and political cultural just as dependent upon the same capitalist economic processes and investments as cities all across the country. And moreover, given that Kansas city governments are legally forbidden from making use of direct income taxes as a revenue tool (unlike city governments across the border in Missouri; both Kansas City and St. Louis make good use of that option), that makes Wichita, a mid-sized city far from larger urban agglomerations, even more desperate than many other cities of the same size to offer tax incentives to attract corporate investment: because growing the property and sales tax base is often their only way to fund city services.

In short, Wichita cannot, and will not, do anything to directly stop Koch, as a very wealthy man, from buying private properties from owners who wish to sell them at his price. But it can, and almost certainly will, look upon his actions as the sort of philanthropic investment that could benefit the city, and look for ways to connect with and leverage it into something even greater.

That latter path is a well-trod one. Andrew Carnegie famously insisted over a century ago that spending all one’s money on building public goods was far wiser than leaving it to the government or (worst of all) one’s children. Obviously many philanthropists set national or international goals for themselves, leaving aside the needs of where they actually live and do business. (And of course, some of those goals are ideological: most of the hundreds of millions which the Koch family have donated have gone to politically conservative and libertarian political organizations and campaigns.) Still, more often than not it is local towns and cities which benefit the most from the largess that comes from charitable foundations and the wallets of the super-rich.

That’s not to deny the importance of small-scale philanthropy: Kansas non-profits generate over $14 billion in revenue, and Kansans themselves donate nearly $2 billion in charity, each year. Every church choir, athletic club, arts organization, youth group, public school playground, and more which benefits from that work adds to their local community.

But most of our attention, predictably, goes to those willing and able to share with their towns and cities on a major scale, helping to build parks, performing arts centers, museums, and libraries, and funding scholarships, educational programs, civic infrastructure, and more. So when some of these big players move, city governments pay attention, and rightly so; Wichita certainly does.

But that attention, nonetheless, needs to be honest about the intentions of the philanthropists in their midst. Any Kansan who has visited Grand Rapids, MI, Omaha, NE, or Bentonville, AR, and seen the massive impact which the DeVos, the Buffett, and the Walton families have had on the amenities of those cities—downtown civic structures, well-appointed and maintained museums and parks—can’t deny the value of such generosity. The same thing is visible in Tulsa, where the Kaiser family’s money has built the Gathering Place and many other civic jewels. But the centralizing practices of the Kaiser Foundation there has given rise to plenty of criticism (from both liberals and conservatives), and similar concerns about other huge foundations crop up in other cities as well.

One might think that Wichita’s Koch family, one of the richest in the country, might be very much be part of this same philanthropic movement. But despite a few high-profile gifts here in Wichita, the Kochs actually fall far behind--when it comes to civic giving in the state of Kansas, that is; political giving is something different--foundations set up by much less prominent families (like the Sunderlands and Hansens in the Kansas City area), as well as behind multiple community organizations set up by Kansas cities themselves. Is Chase Koch looking to greatly change up his family’s local reputation with these purchases and plans? Maybe! Or maybe he’s a son of a billionaire trying to figure himself out—in which case, rather than responding with premature gratitude, maybe Wichita political and cultural leaders should be doing their best to lean on him, helping him seeing the costs of inaction and pushing him in more productive directions.

Philanthropists have always been and will remain part of the Kansas landscape, and the best ones, whether their donations are large or small, are those that work with local governments, civic groups, and other organizations to make certain their support aligns with both community needs and a shared municipal vision. Yes, the intentions of philanthropic action deserve respect; that’s the law. And Wichita, like all of Kansas’s cities and towns, will be grateful for whatever financial support it receives. But giving that comes from out of the blue, and reflects personal goals rather than a civic vision, may not satisfy Carnegie’s measure of the worth of public giving at all, I think.